Poldarn looked up sharply. Last time he'd looked, the monk had been toppling over backwards with the white of his spine showing through the red lips of the cut. Then he remembered: that hadn't actually happened, or not yet. On the other side of the yard, three birds pitched on the ridge of a roof. He looked again, and saw that they were pigeons.
'This may sound like a silly question,' Poldarn asked slowly, 'but do we know each other?'
The monk actually smiled. 'You're remembering, aren't you?' he said. 'Go on, see if you can…'
'No,' Poldarn snapped. 'You tell me.'
'All right.' The monk was still smiling. Three of them were now out of position, as good as dead; in another part of his mind he could see a fine mist of a few drops of their blood, hanging for a tiny moment in the air. 'My name's Torcuat. Ring any bells?'
Poldarn shook his head. 'Names don't mean anything to me. Tell me how long we've known each other.'
'Since sixth grade, actually,' Torcuat replied. 'At least, we were in the same class, but so were a hundred other kids. You were always the high flyer, of course; four months in sixth grade and then straight on to seventh. I was stuck in sixth for another two years, and by then you were a junior proctor. Then you were my-'
'Tutor in swordsmanship for six months,' Poldarn said. 'You were clumsy. In fact you were worse than clumsy, you were a menace to yourself and others. You even dropped your sword once, I wanted to have you thrown out of the school-'
The monk grinned, and pulled up the left leg of his trousers to show his ankle. 'There,' he said, 'see it?'
Poldarn saw it very clearly indeed: a crescent-shaped pink scar, just above the bone. He could remember the same mark when it was gushing blood; how he'd almost panicked, for just a moment convinced himself that one of his students was going to bleed to death right there in the schools, and that'd be the end of his teaching career. He looked up at Torcuat's face.
'I remember you,' he said. 'You used to keep-'
He couldn't say the words.
'A crow in a cage,' Torcuat said. 'Horrible, mangy old thing, and it wouldn't eat table scraps-just my luck, a gourmet crow; I had to go scrabbling about in the cellars hunting mice for the useless bloody creature, and even then it wouldn't touch them till they were three days old.'
Poldarn took a step back and to the side, putting all four monks back into position, like a king granting a reprieve to condemned men already standing on the gallows drop. 'It had a gold ring round its neck,' he said.
Torcuat laughed. 'Brass, actually,' he said. 'It was a curtain ring, from the big hall at home. About the only thing I ever had to remember home by, actually; I left when I was six. It was you held that damned crow still while I shoved that ring down over its head-'
'Poldarn. It was supposed to be Poldarn's crow.'
Torcuat was beaming now. 'You do remember,' he said.
'Yes, that's right. We had that southern kid in the dormitory with us, we wanted to scare him out of his wits because he believed in Poldarn, and seeing the crow… You know, I'd forgotten that myself till you reminded me.'
Poldarn took a step forward and left. 'The woman I came with,' he said. 'What's happened to her?'
The abrupt change of subject seemed to take Torcuat a little by surprise. 'I don't know,' he said, fluently enough. 'I guess she'll be going back to Sansory, unless she feels like staying here for a while. Weren't you two doing a good trade down in the town? Maybe she'll be hanging on for a day or so, carrying on the good work.'
That would, perhaps, explain the cart. 'I think I'd like to go back for my book now,' Poldarn said.
Torcuat shook his head. 'Sorry,' he replied, 'but we've kept the escort hanging about long enough as it is, standing around chatting like this. Under the circumstances, of course-' His eyes lit up. 'I know,' he said. 'What if I were to change places with the escort sergeant? Then we could carry on talking about old times, and you-'
He didn't draw. Instead, he swung his fist, smacking Torcuat so hard on the point of the chin that the monk dropped immediately, like a sheaf thrown out of a hayloft. For a moment the other three hesitated, unable to cope with an assailant who hadn't drawn and therefore couldn't be restrained with deadly force. The moment was long enough for Poldarn to take four quick, short steps backwards, clearing their circles.
'What the hell do you…?' one of them shouted, and the captain of the escort lifted his head and stared. By then, though, Poldarn was standing beside the horse so thoughtfully provided for him (but there would always be a horse standing by when he needed one, and a sword ready to his hand when he felt the inclination to spill blood). He mounted awkwardly, his foot slipping out of the stirrup at his first attempt, but he still had time in hand when he grabbed the reins and pulled the horse's head round, facing it away from the gate and towards the inner yards. Tactically it was a mistake-not running to any place in particular, just running away-but just for once, when he wanted choices there weren't any.
As he passed under the gate arch, a monk with a staff stepped out of the shadows about twelve yards in front of him. He pitied the poor fool as he reached for his sword, but the monk took a step forward, turned sideways and threw the staff at him like a javelin. The squared-off point hit him in the middle of his chest; he felt his feet drop out of the stirrups, then all he saw was dancing sky, until something very broad and fast-moving slammed into his back.
The monk put a boot across his throat before he could move. Neither of them said anything.
'Well done.' He couldn't look round, of course, but he recognised Torcuat's voice. 'Is he damaged?'
The monk shook his head. 'Shouldn't be,' he said.
'That's all right then. Bastard nearly broke my jaw,' Torcuat went on, his voice suggesting that he found it hard to understand how anyone could bring himself to resort to violence. Someone stooped down and relieved Poldarn of his sword. So this is what losing feels like, he said to himself. Actually, it's even worse than I'd imagined.
They lifted him up, and two monks held his hands behind his back while a third tied his wrists together with thin, sharp cord. 'What was all that about, anyway?' Torcuat asked. 'One moment we were talking about the Poldarn legend, the next you were trying to ram my teeth down my throat. Was it something I said?'
They turned him through ninety degrees so that he was facing the main gate. Of course, the fifty horsemen, his cavalry escort, had been watching the whole time. Most of them hadn't moved. He wondered what they were making of all this.
'I told you,' he replied. 'I want to go back for my book.'
'What? Oh, there really is a book, then. I thought you were joking.' Torcuat rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'Why didn't you just say so?'
'I did. You didn't seem to be listening.'
'Oh, for pity's sake.' Torcuat shrugged, then turned to one of his colleagues. 'Be a good man, run up to the provost's office, get him to open up our friend's locker and find this book of his.' He looked back at Poldarn. 'You haven't got more than one book, have you? I wouldn't want him fetching the wrong one.'
Poldarn shook his head. With his hands tied and the monks bracing his feet with their own, it was about the only part of himself he could move. Curious, he thought. When I didn't know who I was, I could do any damn thing I liked. Now I'm me again, and I can't even wipe my own nose.
'That's all right, then,' Torcuat said. 'Otherwise, we could be here all day. Right, if you'd be kind enough to follow me.'